MANHATTAN — There’s never a good time for an injury to occur, but getting hurt in the closing stretch of a senior season is the worst possible scenario.

Kansas State senior Shane Southwell injured his foot in the Feb. 10 overtime home win over Kansas. He didn’t play the next two games, and a hard reality set in: Was this the end?

“Everybody when they get hurt and the way I got hurt you think, man, it might be time to start looking at other things in your life,” Southwell said. “That’s probably the thing that hurt me the most, but I’m doing better and I’m fine now. The doctors and the training staff have done a good job helping me rehabilitate my foot.”

Southwell played 17 minutes against Oklahoma a week ago, 20 against Texas Tech on Tuesday and could be close to full speed when K-State (19-9, 9-6 Big 12) faces No. 15 Iowa State (22-5, 10-5) at 6 p.m. Saturday at Bramlage Coliseum.

“It’s hard for Shane with his foot because he can’t really do some of the things he wants to do,” Wildcat guard Marcus Foster said, “but he’s helping us in every way he can, whether it’s coaching us or being on the floor. I think he’ll be 100 percent on Saturday.”

Coach Bruce Weber said the foot injury was a big setback for Southwell, a 6-foot-7 forward who averages 9.8 points, 4.5 rebounds and 2.9 assists.

“He lost a little confidence,” Weber said. “He wasn’t playing well and then he got hurt. I met with him (Thursday) and he has to get some confidence and get back in the gym. Now he’s moving and running and it’s just getting some game rhythm back. He is not that spectacular athlete than he can just go and not practice. He needs rhythm and routine and get that timing back.

“We need him. We need him to make shots. If he can make shots and then we get Nino’s (Williams) aggressiveness and all the things Nino does, then you have a pretty nice two-headed monster.”

Southwell — who wouldn’t divulge specifics of the nature of the injury or how it occurred — said time off the court made his game rusty.

“I’m doing a lot of things I probably wouldn’t do in terms of pressing and also losing the ball on simple dribble drives and things of that nature,” he said. “I had a really good talk with coach (Weber) and he told me to do the little things first and get your rhythm back and help the team in other ways, whether it’s rebounding, defending, diving on the floor … things of that nature.”

Southwell has drawn criticism on fan message boards for his body language and demeanor on the bench — he admits to having a “silly” personality — but he has his own way of expressing his emotions. That was the case at Texas Tech when he seemed to be having a disagreement with the coaches.

“It wasn’t arguments,” he said. “It was basically them telling me to shoot the ball and be confident in yourself. I really didn’t have confidence in myself. They were telling me, ‘Be you, be confident in your ability.’ I was frustrated with myself, not with them. They were trying to tell me I’m a good player and just relax. I’m an emotional type person but they were just trying to help me.”

Weber sees the desire and said Southwell may be trying too hard.

“I think he’s over-doing it like he did at the beginning of the year,” Weber said. “He’s dribbling too much, trying to make the fancy pass instead of the simple pass. That’s why he was so good last year — he let the game come to him.”

The Wildcats need Southwell to be at his best as the postseason approaches, and he said it's a matter of relaxing and regaining his confidence.

“It’s been hard but for the most part as a team we’ve been doing well,” he said. “I’ve tried to do other things in terms of watching and giving my insights from the bench. All I really care about right now is winning.

“I just want to help whatever way it is, whether it’s scoring or rebounding. I don’t think the team needs me to score that much. If we hold teams to 50 points, we’ll be fine whether I’m scoring or not. I need to do things I’ve done the past three years which is helping out assist-wise, rebounding, steals, blocks and things of that nature.”

“They are so good offensively,” Weber said. “Niang is playing as well as anyone. People talk about Kane and Ejim but Niang in this last stretch, if you look at his numbers, he’s been killing it. He’s such a mismatch problem: He plays point guard, he plays five-man, he plays everything. We have to get stops.”

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